Mom moments

This morning my oldest daughters had themselves a spat. "MOM!!!" you know that tone they use, the tattling one. They still have it down at 16. "Mom!!! Amber made my toothbrush fall in the toilet and she won't take it out!" huh? "She threw a shirt at me and it made my toothbrush fall in the toilet and now she won't pick it up!" So who's fault is it really? And I can't determine who should fish it out of the toilet. Great way to start the day. Thankfully dad intervened but I am happily in the dark about who got to pull it out of the toilet.

Fun at Chuck E Cheese today. Really you ask? Now really it is just throw tokens at a bunch of super happy and excited super cute 7-10 year olds. I informed my brood that they were coming to help. I didn't mind that they didn't show up with me but I did start to mind after every invited child showed up and all my help was no where to be found. After they finally arrived, the begging for their own tokens started. My help was lost when it came to the pizza. Off, all playing Skee ball together after I had most of the invited children at the table. Then the post birthday girl (she did have her birthday in December, mid January allowed plenty of Christmas recovery time before throwing the birthday party) was last to be found and brought to the table. We were ready to do cupcakes, twice I had to ask my "help" to return to the table. I sent kids packing with more tokens after presents were opened. My biggest "helpers" sat at the table texting. The dad was lost in a virtual reality kind of game. Kylee kept feeding the game tokens. I wondered several times if he had left but he was still there. It was still a fun day and a super easy party. I was able to come home to messy house. I put a small dent in the mess. I would have put a bigger dent in it but someone on Facebook-not me- accidentally clicked on something that downloaded one of those horrible viruses on the computer. I am always the one though that gets to try and recover the computer even though I am really not all that computer gifted. I have spent my entire evening trying to fix it and I think I have finally accomplished that now that it is midnight and I am blogging as I have it scanned one last time. AVG couldn't find it. But I found something that finally found a ton of crap on my computer. It is Malwarebytes anti-malware. I could download it for free and it really has worked. I found it through a CNET recommendation. Oh yes, I sound so smart but not really. We will see. I am pretty sure so far that it did the trick.

I have been reflecting on one special revelation from this past week. There are times I don't like my job-the one that pays me. But sometimes I need to reflect on those special moments. There are a couple of girls that lost their mom when the little one was pretty young. Dad is doing a great job. They walk to school most days and when they run a little late they run most of the way. They always share stuff with me before they cross the street. Their dad was gone for the weekend and just came back that evening he gave the girls some souvenirs from his trip before they had to go to school. They were SO excited to show me what he gave them. Another dad with 2 girls saw this. When he came back across the street he commented something about the girls and how "some kids just really are an open book" comment. But I told him that they had lost their mom. That they are like that with me. But I didn't know what else to say. That dad's face just fell and it was like he was instantly sad and reflected on his own girls. He thought about how hard it would be to not have a mom to their hair. I can see that there is a little void in their life and they sure do like to share stuff with me. The youngest hugged my leg when I went into her classroom the other day. I am not their mom but I get little opportunities to share happy little girl things with them. Maybe in the end it is not the paycheck I should be there for. It is just to have an opportunity to be something positive in over 500 kids lives. Okay, there are some days some kids might not like me in the end. Some days I don't like all of them. There have been some really rough days. No wonder the Savior loved little kids so much. There is nothing better than to be loved by a kid.

Even when an 18 year old and a 16 year old are bantering over who's fault it is that there is a toothbrush in the toilet, there is nothing better than to have that title of mom and to feel mommy-ish to all those you come in contact with. At the end of the day it is still okay to the shut the door and tell them to go away. Darn it-moms get tired!!

I just wanted to share a snippet of my mommyhood. I would call it super human feats of amazingness but every mom fills those shoes so it really is just quite ordinary.

Should I post something new?

I think some of the bloggers in the bloggin world have called it quits. But I noticed the interest in Facebook is waning as well but I think it is because they keep changing it and gets harder and harder to see what you want.

So anyways, Christmas was nice, once I could talk and stop coughing up a lung. It was still very nice and we were very blessed.

Lee Joe's job is working out fine for now. Jobs and paychecks and wonderful things to have. And knowing when the paycheck will show up is great too.

We almost have the settlement on the car. We are getting far more than I expected. We may have our next car lined up.

Hannah turned 8. She was baptized the Saturday after her birthday. Devanie came and helped make her baptism super special. Besides the fact that she came with cousins in tow. But she brought the most beautiful dress and accessories for Hannah to wear with it. She was so very excited from like Christmas until the 3rd of January. She got her ears pierced on her birthday. That is when my girls have been able to make the choice to get their ears pierced.

Kelsea is still fighting illnesses as well. She got her blood drawn today. She is on some strong anitibiotics. We are hoping to kick whatever is trying to nail her once again.

Amber and Kelsea are in the process of changing rooms. It is a decision they made together and they are doing the work together. I am not involved. They are funny-when Kelsea is feeling well. Kelsea just makes hilarious comments about everything and Amber laughs her head off the whole time. If you have seen her profile pictures on Facebook-well it is like that all the time. Some boys came over during Christmas break and she was mortified over our old family picture from about 5 or 6 years ago. She is not embarrassed over wearing green mud on her face for all her friends to see?

Amber has finished her first semester in college with 3.8 GPA!!! She was taking calculus, chemistry and intro to engineering. WOW!! She blows me away. She has a job tutoring at the jr high. So she is doing well.

Kylee and Autumn are doing very well. They are healthy at the moment, playing instruments like their bog sisters and having pre-teen and just turned teen spats. PMS is becoming a consistent visitor around here. I can do without that.

Like always, I need to post lots of pictures. So much has happened in December alone. Wow!

Lee Joe's turn to be sick. He just came home running a fever. He has the flu. Of course he thinks he might faint. I need to go put him to bed, poor guy.